Random Ramblings: On teenagers ...
A whole lot of my work (when I do direct services, which is a whole fucking lot) deals with teenagers. I’m an advocate for teenagers. Whenever we have a new grant or program in the queue, I always ask how we can get teenagers involved.
Why? Because no one gives a fuck about teenagers. We look at them as a problem to be ignored rather than vital assets to the community with things to say and ideas of their own. They’re not cute anymore. Everyone loves dealing with little kids. They’re cute and squishy and say just the darnedest things. Not so much with teenagers.
Some of them are petulant, short-sighted jerks. Guess what? So were you at that age. And I was too. That’s the age where you find yourself and establish your own system of beliefs and morals and form the core of who you’ll be as an adult.
As a society, we’re thrusting them into the adult sphere earlier and earlier with less and less guidance from bona fide adults. Blame it on the American culture that requires you to be a good worker above all else and keeps parents out of the home with their minds off their children for more and more extended periods of time. Guess what? Teenagers are not adults. They scanned their wee little teenage heads and found out that the shit necessary to think shit through isn’t all that developed in teenagers.
All this to say, if the little fuckers want to trick or treat, fucking let ‘em. If they want to hang out at the mall, outside the gas station or in the parking lot at the library, fucking let ‘em. Or if not, don’t bitch when the only entertainment they have left is drinking, drugs and fucking.
Thank you! I may be just a teenager myself, 19, but I’ve spent the last two years working with and for teenagers in my community. And although I’m now with a somewhat power organization (in a voluntary capacity), it seems that I’m still doing everything myself! We need more straight-shooting people like you!
